From January 28 through January 31, Hyosung will participate in ‘IPSO,’ the outdoor/sports industry expo held in Munich, Germany, and continue its inter-departmental collaboration and partnership with clients.

‘ISPO’ is the world’s largest exhibition where outdoor/sports-related textiles, clothing, fashion and various leisure products are gathered together. A total of 2,700 companies from 57 countries participated in last year’s exhibition. Hyosung is developing new markets with ‘MIPAN regen aqua-x’ and ‘regen cotna,’ which it developed in light of the increasing demand for environment-friendly textiles in the outdoor/sports market.

Regen is a textile made from recycling waste PET bottles. It is an environment-friendly yarn that reduces CO2 and landfills. Hyosung combined it with ‘Aqua-X,’ which is cool to the touch, and sweat-absorbent & quick drying, to enable users to feel comfortable and pleasant after a long workout. Also, the company added the function of the polyester yarn ‘cotna’ to it to develop a yarn that has little lint or wrinkles, and maintains the soft touch unique to cotton materials when clothes are made. Hyosung applied Spandex, such as ‘creora® Color+,’ which has a vivid color, and ‘creora® Highclo™,’ which is robust against chlorine in swimming pools, to these yarns, and introduces flexible and functional fabrics. To develop fabric combined with the advantages of the existing differentiated yarns, the three PUs within the Textile Business Unit, i.e. the Nylon Polyester Fiber PU, the Spandex PU and the Fabric PU, collaborated from the product development stage to exhibition planning stage, which was an unprecedented occurrence.

Hyosung, which has valued shared growth with customers, is also introducing a fabric, which it developed jointly with 10 clients, at this exhibition. In particular, it cooperated with domestic fabric manufacturers, ‘Sejong Textile’ and ‘Hyundai Chemical,’ and foreign fabric manufacturers, such as ‘Showmetex Knitting & Dyeing Co., Ltd’, from the early stage of development, and exhibits various fabrics for sports apparel using the yarns of Hyosung. The company has been continuously supporting the sales activities of small and medium-sized domestic clients, who have difficulties with finding an opportunity to get involved with international exhibitions, by participating in IPSO together.

Chairman Cho Hyun-joo, who emphasized shared growth and collaboration with clients in this New Year’s address, said, “We will listen to the voices of customers and the overall market, repay them through offering the world’s best products, identify and support competent clients, and grow with them sustainably.”

As an additional note to provide broader context, the size of the European outdoor product wholesale market is about €5.5 billion (as of 2016, European Outdoor Group survey). The clothing market, worth roughly €2.8 billion, accounts for more than half of the European outdoor product wholesale market, and is growing steadily every year.